Civil Extermination: Mob Justice or Justified Security?

"Almost God." Except that God is supposedly just. Now we have Israel cutting off electricity and food supplies to the people and families residing in Gaza in retaliation for rockets fired into Israel from the same area. The Israeli government justifies these measures as necessary security to put an end to the rockets, stating that families in Gaza "harbor" the "terrorists" who shot the rockets in the first place.

Congratulations, Israel. You have the power to confer life and death. And what better way to show off that power, and thus impress and hence deter your enemies, than by giving the civilian population under your thumb a slow "almost death", plunging them into the nether world of neither being exactly alive nor being exactly dead?

You know that "terrorists" have families, and those families must be punished for the crimes of their rocket-launching relatives. And nobody's saying the Palestinians in Gaza are drowning in tears over the Israelis' terror. So what's there to lose? The Mafia used this technique with success - i.e., punishing the families of those who do them wrong - so why not Israel? Why isn't the greater purpose of Israel's protection enough justification for applying mob justice?

Of course, we all hear "there will be international outcry." But who gives a damn about the so-called "international outcry"? Israel is a sovereign state, unlike that gulag archipelago commonly referred to as "Palestine" or "the territories". Nobody has the right to mess with Israel. Nobody has the right to criticize a sovereign state doing what it sees fit to solve a problem involving its own security.

Same law applies to, of course, to all sovereign states, such as the U.S. Nobody has the right to tell the U.S. it shouldn't invade Iraq to take their oil or force democracy on them against their will (as if that was even a logical premise for any reasonable creature to discuss), since they are a sovereign state and invading Iraq was essential to U.S. security. And nobody has the right to tell Burma not to make dissidents disappear the way they see fit to protect their own security, which is clearly threatened by these dissidents, monks or otherwise. Nobody has the right to tell oppressors not to oppress, and nobody has the right to tell invaders not to invade, or the right to tell racists, such as the janjaweed in Darfur, not to exterminate the population they want to loot, rape, pillage, then kill off, and finally subjugate. That is, if the oppressors, invaders, and exterminators happen to be "sovereign states". Like the U.S., like Burma, like Sudan.

Unless, of course, you're a superpower or in the "superpower loop". In which case you have the right to do whatever you damn well want to do, and the whole world be damned. No wonder former Mexican President Vicente Fox referred to Pres. George W. Bush as "cocky". That's the superpower perk. So GW is "cocky", and so is Israel. Compassion is old-think. Aggression and pre-emption and Mob justice is new-think.

And another superpower perk is being able to declare nations as "rogue", "evil" or "terrorism-sponsoring", thus cancelling their above-mentioned rights as "sovereign states" to do whatever the hell they want to do. So Iran doesn't get those "rights". We can condemn Iran. We impose sanctions. And Iraq, pre-invasion Iraq, was also condemned, hence opening the door to invasion, war, and occupation. Their status as a sovereign state was basically cancelled by the Superpower. We call the shots. We name the nations that get left alone, and the nations that get crushed. Baddest guys on the block. We are the sovereign of all sovereign nations.

So back to Israel and its mob justice in cutting off lifeline supplies to Gaza. You see, the Palestinians in Gaza are NOT a sovereign state. They have no rights. Their livelihoods have already been cut off, and they are in a state of poverty and dire need. Compared to the Israelis, who are in many ways on a roll. Nobody recognizes the Palestinians, their government, their right to exist or even live. They are definitely OUT of the Superpower loop.

They are relegated to the term "terrorists", which is the lowest of the low in terms of status. It means one can be picked up and jailed at the slightest provocation. It means one is essentially not human. So cutting off their power or food is not inhumane. And Israel would NEVER do this to a large community of animals, would they? But terrorists do not have the rights accorded to animals. And all Palestinians, including infants and children, are, at least in Gaza, terrorists. It's a form of civil extermination. You exterminate their right to self-determination, even insomuch as it means going out and making a living, or keeping one's family alive by one's own efforts.

Perhaps one can imagine why Palestinians are reluctant to recognize Israel. All they have in defense of their own right to exist as a people is their right to say "no" to oppression. And the right to oppress is afforded to sovereign states. So if they recognize Israel's sovereignty, then they are recognizing Israel's right to oppress and subjugate them and bulldoze their dignity beyond recognition. Would you, in their shoes, be ready for that?

On a more pragmatic note, will this tactic work like it worked for the great Mafia? Will it silence the rockets and attacks on Israel? In the short term, we'll see. In the long term, not a chance in hell. Life, especially human life, just don't work that way. Not in Burma, not in Sudan, not in the American south of yesteryear (or still?), and not even in Israel.

Nobody is "almost God." God always takes responsibility for His actions.